I just posted a 2008 interview with James Lovelock. (1) Despite my own feelings on the subject I found the interview rather confronting and unnerving. It said things that I have often thought. It said things that I too believe. But that doesn't make it comfortable to hear someone who is considered an expert, albeit a rebel expert, say what I would like to avoid even thinking. If my close friends know anything of the way I think they will tell you that I'm a rather skeptical existentialist. It will therefore not come as any surprise to my reader to learn that I'm not exactly impressed with nor a big fan of my own species. I can, with references and footnotes, make the case that we are the worst invasive species the world has ever experienced. We make the biblical plague of locust look like a summer picnic with a few ants. I could go on and on about the world wide plague of the homo sapiens but that isn't the purpose of this blog.
The point is that people like James Lovelock - and there are many of them - have attempted to warn the arrogant homo sapiens for decades and now, throwing up their hands in surrender, tell us the Paris Agreement may be too little too late. Their advice? Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
Despite my disgust with humanity and admitting that the world would be much better off without us, I can not accept that. Firstly I cannot accept such hedonism. It is like saying if we're going to die we're going to leave the world in the worst possible condition for those species that might survive because we don't care. Secondly, we should not die without struggling to make right what we have destroyed.
Ironically the first source to whom I turn to explain myself is the early 17th century cleric and metaphysical poet, John Donne. More specifically my mind was immediately drawn to the famous two lines from his Meditation XVII -
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a moanor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
Like it or not I am a part of humanity. Whether or not I have committed any specific and personal environmental sin, I am a part of the problem because I am a part of humanity and therefore I must not only accept responsibility but fight to the end to correct what we have done. ...therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
I am not going to argue with those who say climate change is a myth until they pull their heads out of the sand and start looking at facts. We can measure the fact that we put 33.4 billion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere with our use of fossil fuels and cement in 2010, and added an additional 3.3 billion metric tons from land use change. In 2015 we're on target to add 40 billion metric tons from human activity. We can measure the amount of garbage we produce and how much of it ends up in our lakes, streams and oceans. We can measure the extent of damage that garbage does. We can measure the amount of harmful chemicals we produce and ultimately add to our food, water and environment in general. We can measure the amount of oxygen produced by the various plants - most from the ocean and rain forests - and from that we can calculate how much oxygen is produced by an acre of rain forest. If we know that we can know how much oxygen we lose when we cut down that rain forest.
Now if you want to argue with me that there is no absolute proof that such environmental destruction is causing climate change, I'll ignore your total disregard for the majority of the world's scientist. I'll ignore it and counter with, 'even if you're right, does that justify us continuing to destroy the environment?'
But in this blog I'm not going to argue with such people. I'm speaking to the rational individual who is concerned and, like the rest of us, is struggling with the question 'what can I/we do?'
Obviously we don't have the space in a simple blog to do more than suggest an idea or two. That's what I propose to do. Therefore I propose the hypothesis that if we leave solving the problems we have created and/or finding the solutions to the future of humanity to politicians and large corporations we are definitely doomed and James Lovelock's 20 years is an exaggeration. We, as fellow homo sapiens for whom the bells tolls, must be the decision makers and actors.
Why would I say this? I dare say most of you know the answer, but for those who still have a naive faith in the system, I must continue. If you are one of those whom I am calling naive, please do not be insulted. My father was a highly respected historian whose PhD was in US Constitution and he died still having full faith in the system. I never attempted to shake that faith but at this point in history I feel obligated to be the bad guy who proposes that it isn't the perfect system we'd like to believe. It is still politics.
It was during my generation that I would identify the 'professional politician'. I believe that the 1960s was the first time we actually witnessed people going to college and majoring in Political Science because they planned to be professional politicians. Be that as it may, suffice it to say such creatures have evolved and their sole purpose is getting re-elected. Case in point. Today I heard that a member of a particular state's legislature changed from Democrat to Republican. Why? He gave a very transparent and lame excuse. In reality? He wants to get re-elected and his state is slowly turning Republican. It had nothing to do with values, beliefs, or political platform. It had to do with keeping his job. If he will sell out the party that had supported and paid for his election for many years, you know that he'll sell you for a vote.
In the 1990s I was the president of a state organization that represented, among others, psychotherapists. A law had been passed that required the services of a psychotherapist in certain circumstances but unintentionally left out a means for psychotherapists to get paid. I was at a meeting in Washington D.C. where we met with the iconic Teddy Kennedy and Newt Gingrich. They agreed that the issue was just a mistake, non-partisan and would be correct. A politician attached a partisan rider to the bill correcting the mistake. The bill was killed by the Republicans. It's been over 20 years and the mistake has still not been corrected. So much for integrity. The law still requires a psychotherapist but doesn't provide a way to pay them.
Enough about politicians. I think a brief look at the political gridlock in Washington and what our last few Congressional sessions did not accomplish answers the question 'why can we not expect our Congress to help with this crisis?'
Corporations are a problem most people do not understanding. During a little know period of my life I was burned out and decided to turn my psychotherapeutic skills to business counseling skills. I was actually licensed with the Security and Exchange Commission and held their second highest level of licensure. The first thing I learned in doing all of that study was that a corporation is a legal entity that is almost impossible to kill and which, by law, is required to do everything for profit and the shareholder. A corporation will only be philanthropic if it improves their bottom line. So when companies like Exxon try to convince you that they have suddenly discovered a social conscience, don't believe it. It is against the law and they legally exist to make a profit for their stockholders.
As Prof. Stephen Bainbridge writes, "As I explain therein, however, while the business judgment rule has the effect of giving directors latitude to make decisions that deviate from the shareholder wealth maximization norm, that is not the purpose of the rule. The fact that corporate law does not intend to propmote corporate social responsibility, but rather merely allows it to exist behind the shield of the business judgment rule becomes significant in - and is comfirmed by - cases where the business judgment rule does not apply." (2) Underlines are mine.
Our bottom line is that their bottom line is more important than anything else in the world including human existence. They can say or do anything they want to get you to buy, for example, Exxon gasoline, but if it means actual loss of profit then it will not happen. Our US corporate law gave them such an existence. The people who work in a corporation may have consciences but the corporation is without a conscience. To make the situation worse, to be able to run such a callous and heartless organization takes a special type of person. I'm not even going to try to reference all of the studies and papers, I'll leave it to you to look up, but top executives have four times the incidence of psychopathy than the average community. The personality characteristics are manipulation, callousness, impulsivity, aggressiveness and lack of emotion. Aren't these the same characteristics that make most of you hate insurance companies which are just gigantic profit corporations. The only thing you can trust is that whatever they do will somehow return to them in the form of profit. Now do you want to trust the future of humanity to a large corporation?
I'm a skeptic. I have very strong doubts that humanity can get its act together in time to avoid total disaster. Will it be within a few years one side or the other of Dr. Lovelock's 20 years? I don't know. I do know that I personally dare not ask for whom the bell tolls. I'm old but I still have a responsibility. I have a responsibility because no matter how hard I might try, I'm still a part of the problem. Therefore I must work to the end to try to help save humanity by working to save our environment, the nature I so dearly and passionately love.
FOOTNOTE:
(1) Address of the interview with Dr. James Lovelock. http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange?CMP=share_btn_fb
(2) http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2010/07/shareholder-wealth-maximization-and-the-business-judgment-rule.html
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